Data sources that are
available in SAS Visual Analytics Designer (the designer) are prepared
by a data administrator or analyst so that you can easily define a
report. Data administrators load tables into memory using SAS Visual
Analytics Administrator. Analysts can use SAS Visual Data Builder
to design queries that load tables into memory too. All data sources
contain data items, which can refer to calculations or columns in
physical data (tables). Reports can include query results from more
than one data source.
Each data source includes
one or more data items that you can use in reports. For example, a
data source named
Order Information might
include standard data items such as
Order ID,
Product
ID,
Unit Cost,
Order
Date, and
Order Amount.
You decide which data items to use. You can select all of the data
items in the data source or a subset of the data items.
The designer can display
data items using an existing user-defined format that has already
been specified externally for a data column in a data source. However,
you cannot specify a new or different user-defined format for a data
item in the designer.